Those of us who entertain a rigid notion as to what fiction—or reality, for that matter—must be may be of opinion that truth can be noun

Sunday, January 1, 2012

A Cure for Answer

(i)

‘You may have been a
devil-fearing, hellfire-believing, Sunday-schooled child, you may have tended
tadpoles in a bottle aquarium—that doesn’t matter’, she said, grinding a sliced
bunch of apricots.

(ii)

‘You question—what you need is
cure, not answer’, she went on, pushing a roll into the mug.

(iii)

‘Tear the last chapter of
Ecclesiastes from its binding, you cross it top left to bottom right, do so
then from right to left, sellotape it where it belongs—you put the Book back in
the oven. Go tell mom you did do nothing wrong that day—you mean it.

(iv)

Soak The Origin of Species in hot
herbal tea, soak it really well, drop it in a plastic envelope, you mail it to
the lab, marking it: For Meticulous DNA Analysis. Go home, you say hello to
dad. In case, he isn’t home, you only see the pup, why, say hello—the same.

(v)

Open Discourse on the Method to a
random page, in the corner of your option, with a fountain pen, you scribble: What
makes a man think up infantile thoughts? Before you put the pen back in the
stand, you’d do well not to drink that peg of ink.

(vi)

Hold The First and Last Freedom
against the mirror, in its reflection identify the tongue it’s printed in,
doing so think of three four-letter words, you chew on them, thought bubbles
and all.

(vii)

Spread the delicacy of chop suey
on a silver platter, resist the instinct to grab it with a fork or spoon, you
read it instead—like a Book of Wisdom. As time-consuming the task may turn out to
be, you grab a pack of Tao Te Ching—for a homemade snack.

(viii)

Visit the Pupa in your backyard,
sit by the shade, you study its everyday metamorphosis, against boredom if you
must, micro and macroscopically. If the thought of hastening its evolution with
your lens crosses your mind, pluck it—you eat that thought.

(ix)

Pet a Mongoose kit if you will,
when it’s grown up and agile, leave it loose upon open field, sneak behind it—you
follow its trail. Chances are one of you will be lost—if not, you will have at
least had a minor adventure. Get home eventually, will you, it will be too late
for a full course meal—you make a salad of Midnight’s Children.

(x)

Don’t you try—but, you may
improvise’, she said, at long last, lapping up on a dribbling, juice-soaked
roll of blank pages.